HuffingtonPost.com by Dan Froomkin (excerpts):  Washington - With just over three months until the last US troops are currently due to leave Iraq, the Department of Defense is engaged in a mad dash to give away things that cost US taxpayers billions of dollars to buy and build.  The giveaways include enormous, elaborate military bases and vast amounts of military equipment that will be turned over to the Iraqis, mostly just to save the expense of bringing it home.  "Its all sunk costs," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who oversaw the training of Iraqi soldiers from 2003 to 2004.  Rather than strip those bases clean and ship everything home, Defense Department officials tell the Huffington Post that over 2.4 million pieces of equipment worth a total of at least $250 million - everything from tanks and trucks to office furniture and latrines - have been given away to the Iraqi government in the past year, with the pace of transfers expected to increase dramatically in the coming months.  Most of the 2.4 billion was spent building about a dozen huge outposts that, in addition to containing air strips and massive fortifications also have all the comforts of home.  The Al-Asad Airfield in Anbar province, for example, covers 25 square miles, about the size of Boulder, CO, and is known as "Camp Cupcake" due to its amenities.  The 15-square-mile Joint Base Balad, as Whitney Terrell wrote earlier this year for Slate, is "home to three football field-sized chow halls, a 25-meter swimming pool, a high dive, a football field, a softball field, two full-service gyms, a squash court, a movie theater, and the US military's largest airfield in Iraq;" and it's not clear just what the Iraqis will do with some of these bases once they get them.  

Commentary:  So, what did we receive for leaving all of this armory and amenities behind (take a look below - amputees).  The Iraqis especially loved planting mines that would blow the legs off of our young men.  What will we get from them in the future?  Unfortunately, since Israel is their closest enemy, they will most likely turn all of this armory around and use it against our closest ally and their closest enemy, Israel.  In case you aren't aware of it, Iraq is 98.9% Muslim.  The Muslims refer to us as "big satan" and to Israel as "little satan."  They hate us vehemently.  Most Iraqis never wanted us there and they laugh at our "stupidity."  Walid Shoebat, who now speaks out for the US and Israel (shoebat.com), was a former PLO terrorist and he said they laugh at us!  Check out his website.  Their religious leaders lead huge rallies among the populations and they literally chant, "death to America and death to Israel!"  Unless our troops converted most of the Iraqi Muslims to some other religion, their "holy books," and the "holy" Qu'ran, teaches them to "kill the infidels (non-Muslims)" Surah 9:5, and "Wherever you find infidels, kill them" Hadith 9:4, "When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks" Qu'ran 47:4.  They are biding their time, but if you aren't a Muslim, their objective, according to the Qu'ran, is to kill you and me.  Now, aren't our leaders the most intelligent people in the world?  The holy Bible tell us, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour" 1 Peter 5:8.  Someone is either drunk, lazy or not too bright, maybe all three, in Washington.  

 

All amputees from the Iraq / Afghanistan war.